District and Community Nursing

The Kings Fund (2016) Understanding quality in district nursing services: learning from patients, carers and staff, London: Kings Fund.

• View page

The Queen’s Nursing Institute (2017) Transition from children's to adult community services: learning resource, London: QNI

• This online learning resource aims to support community and primary care professionals to improve the experience of a young person transitioning from children’s to adult community services.
  View page

Royal College of Nursing (2014) District and community nursing services in England: a call to action (policy briefing 13/14), London: RCN

• View page

Royal College of Nursing (2013) District nursing: harnessing the potential: the RCN’s UK position on district nursing, London: RCN.

• View page

Royal College of Nursing (2013) Moving care to the community: an international perspective (policy briefing 12/13, updated December 2014), RCN: London.

• View page

The Queen’s Nursing Institute (2014) 2020 vision 5 years on: reassessing the future of district nursing, London: QNI.

• View page

The Queen’s Nursing Institute and NHS England (2014) Developing a district nursing workforce planning project, (no place): NHS England.

• View page

The Queen’s Nursing Institute (2016) General practice nursing in the 21st century: a time of opportunity, London: QNI.

• View PDF

The Queen’s Nursing Institute (2015) The value of the district nurse specialist practitioner qualification, London: QNI.

• View page

The Queen’s Nursing Institute and The Queen's Nursing Institute Scotland (2015) The QNI/QNIS voluntary standards for district nurse education and practice, London: QNI.

• View page

We would like to thank the RCN District Nursing member community for their input into the development of this subject guide.

Chilton S (2012) A textbook of community nursing, London: Hodder Arnold.

• View this eBook
• Borrow from RCN Library services

Drennan V (2014) Oxford handbook of primary care and community nursing, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• View this eBook
• Borrow from RCN Library services

Gada S (2012) Community paediatrics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• Borrow from RCN Library services

Harris J (2013) Placement learning in community nursing: a guide for students in practice, Edinburgh: Bailliere Tindall.

• View this eBook
• Borrow from RCN Library services

Nicol J (2015) Nursing adults with long term conditions (2nd edition), London: SAGE.

• Borrow from RCN Library services

O’Brien E (2012) District nursing manual of clinical procedures, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

• View this eBook
• Borrow from RCN Library services

Sines D (2013) Community and public health nursing (5th edition), Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

• View this eBook
• Borrow from RCN Library services

Use these links to see details of books the RCN libraries hold on each topic.

• Community nursing
• District nursing

Use these links for details of journal articles on each topic.

• Community nursing
• District nursing

• British Journal of Community Nursing
• Community Practitioner
• Health and Social Care in the Community
• Journal of Community Health
• Journal of Community Health Nursing
• Journal of Community Nursing

Baly M (1987) A history of the Queen’s Nursing Institute, London: Croom Helm.

• Borrow from RCN Library services

Cohen S (2010) The district nurse, Oxford: Shire.

• Borrow from RCN Library Services

Jordan P (2012) District nurse: my life as a nurse in the 1950s, London: Orion.

• Borrow from RCN Library services

Morrison C (2017) Hebridean heroines: twentieth century Queen's Nurses (1940s-1970s), Laxay, Isle of Lewis: Islands Book Trust.

• Borrow from RCN Library Services

Sweet H (2012) Community nursing and primary healthcare in twentieth-century Britain, London: Routledge.

• Borrow from RCN Library Services

Our Permanent Collection consists of nursing specific core items and rare items. It is viewable by appointment at the RCN Library and Heritage Centre. Here is a small selection of items from our collection.

Baly M, Robottom B and Clark J (1987) District nursing (2^nd edition), London: Heinemann.

• View book details

Handbook for Queen's Nurses (1924), London: The Scientific Press.

• View book details

Loane M (1905) Outlines of routine in district nursing, London: The Scientific Press.

• View book details

Stocks M (1960) A hundred years of district nursing, London: Allen and Unwin.

• View book details

The RCN Archive contains some of the most important collections dedicated to the history of the nursing profession in the UK. Visitors by appointment in Edinburgh.

• RCN Archive catalogue
• RCN Archive

The RCN Archives hold the organisational records of the Queen Victoria's Institute of District Nursing Scottish branch, which subsequently became the Queens Nursing Institute, Scotland (QNIS). These range from 1889-2015 and extend to almost 8m of records. (Collection reference: QNI).

Dr Rona Dougall, Perceptions of change: an oral history of District Nursing in Scotland, 1940-1999, (reference T/QNI). 

Dr Catherine Morrison, for her PhD thesis of 2013, District Nursing on the Isle of Lewis covering the 1930s to 80s in 20 interviews (reference T/IOL).

Frances Trees project (reference T/EUR), The History of Nursing in an English Urban Region from 1919.  

Dr Helen Sweet, 28 interviews with district nurses from England and Wales (references from T/219-378). 

The oral archives of the RCN also contain many other district nurse interviews (reference T).

Our photographic collections include district nursing (reference P/26) and show nurses at work visiting all areas by different means of transport. The collection focuses mainly on the twentieth century up to the 1980s.